Guitarist David Smash—whose YouTube moniker is Dovydas—was performing a solo gig at a brewery in Bradenton, Florida, one Tuesday night this summer.
Besides the fact that it was a slow night (his audience consisted of five people, which happens to the best of us), everything was going along just fine—until someone threw him a curve ball and requested a Steve Vai song. The song in question is "Tender Surrender," a track from 1995's Alien Love Secrets.
We'll let Smash take it from here:
"I was doing my live looping improvisation show," he says. "One lady was cracking jokes in between songs, and then she threw out the most unexpected request I've ever received. I usually don't include audience interactions in my videos, but this was so rare and funny I just had to keep it in."
Instead of giving up, Smash scrambled and seriously thought it through; he searched for tabs online and played his own version of the classic Vai tune. You can watch it unfold below; below that, you'll find a live performance of the song by Vai (for a bit of context). Enjoy!
“Dime recorded tons of unfinished riffs, and there were things he had lying around... hidden gems”: Zakk Wylde says there have been talks about recording new Pantera material based on unreleased Dimebag Darrell demos
“When I met Billy, I didn’t really have an amazing guitar. He said, ‘Oh, you gotta have a Les Paul, mate’”: Steve Stevens on why the ’80s were Hamer time for the Billy Idol guitarist – and it was all thanks to Paul Stanley
